Pages

Sunday, February 3, 2013

Little Filo Cheese Rolls for #SundaySupper

So it’s the Super Bowl today! As the old Texas saying goes, I don’t have a dog in that fight, but that won’t stop me from setting up my dvr to record the game (since it comes on a 3:30 a.m. Monday morning for me in Dubai) and then watching the most super of bowls munching on snacks and sipping on drinks. And I am just going to warn you right now that I won’t be on Facebook on Monday until I’ve watched the game. It’s more fun to watch if I don’t already know the winner, don’t you think?

This week for Sunday Supper everyone is making delicious dishes that they would like to eat while watching the big game. The hard part was narrowing it down to just one! But I have to tell you that I am delighted with my choice! Crispy, crunchy filo pastry baked around a lovely green onion, feta and ricotta cheese filling. And as I bit into the first one, I decided it needed a little something to dip it into. So I poured some honey in a ramekin and added a chopped fresh red chili. The saltiness of the cheese was complemented beautifully by the sweet honey with a bite of spicy heat. So good!

Ingredients

1/3 cup or 75g melted butter

About 4 1/2 oz or 125g ricotta

3 1/2 oz or 100g feta

Generous bunch green onions

9 1/2 oz or 270g pack of filo – you won’t use all

Optional dip: About 1/4 cup or 60ml runny honey and one small red chili pepper

Method

Preheat your oven to 325°F or 165°C. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. I give the pan a quick spray with Pam to stop the parchment from slipping around and you might want to do the same.

Finely chop about four inches or 10cm off the ends of your green onions.

In a small bowl, measure out your feta and ricotta and add in the green onions. Use the tines of your fork to crumble the feta.

Add in your egg and use your fork to beat it just a little bit. Mix the whole lot together. Set aside.

Remove the filo pastry from the package and figure out how to unfold it without ripping it so that you can see exactly how large the sheets are. This is the trickiest bit of the whole recipe. Once your sheets are unfolded, decide how you can best cut them into large rectangles of around 4 inches wide and 10-12 inches long.

As you can see, my sheets were quite large so I ended up cutting them in fourths. Stack all the layers on top of each other. Place them on your clean kitchen counter. I usually lay a piece of cling film down first to make clean up easier.

Brush the top sheet with melted butter and put about a tablespoon full of filling about an inch or two centimeters from the short edge.

Roll the filo around the filling a couple of times and then fold in the two sides. Continue rolling until you reach the end of the sheet of filo. Place seam side down on your prepared baking sheet.

Continue buttering and adding filling and making cheese rolls until all of your filling is gone. You will probably have some filo sheets left over.

Brush the tops of the rolls with the remaining butter and bake in your preheated oven for around 30-45 minutes or until golden and crispy.

While there is no official dipping sauce to go with this, as I mentioned above, I mixed a little honey with a chopped fresh red chili and it was lovely with the cheese rolls. You might want to do the same!

Join the #SundaySupper conversation on Twitter on Sunday, February 3rd to talk all about our Super Bowl Recipes! We’ll tweet throughout the day and share recipes from all over the world. Our weekly chat starts at 7 p.m. ET and you do not want to miss out on the fun. Follow the #SundaySupper hashtag, and remember to include it in your tweets to join in the chat. Check out our#SundaySupper Pinterest board for more fabulous recipes and food photos!

I imagine Americans all over the world will be getting together to watch, Kim. Certainly we have done in most places we've lived. I don't know too many people yet in Dubai but I am quite happy to watch on my own (Simon is traveling) because then I don't have to get up in the wee hours to do it. Thanks for your kind words!

I thought about olives, Amanda, but wasn't sure about the saltiness since the feta is already so salty. I was thinking next time I would add cooked shrimp, chopped up. But now I am reconsidering olives.

Exactly what I was thinking, Megan! So many possibilities! They shouldn't be too sharp or chunky though, because the filo might split while you are rolling it up. It splits a bit when baking but i imagine it would be worse if there were already a tear.

Cooking for people I love, creating deliciousness out of fresh ingredients, browsing through cookbooks for inspiration, perusing grocery shelves for choice items and writing about my expat life enriched by food. That's what I do here.